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School Shooter
School shooters are a kind of spree killers/mass murderers who commit violence with firearms at an educational facility, such as a high school or a university. The term is to be distinguished from shootings committed by law enforcement near schools against students or intruders, such as the Kent State Massacre. Pathology School shooters commit their sprees and are "set off" for a number of different reasons. One can be that they have recently gone through a very emotional romantic breakup. Another can be an academic failure. Sometimes, school shooters might be inspired by more recent school shootings. They might also have suffered a lot of bullying. Some personal traits listed by the FBI in their text "The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective" are: *Almost always male, with few exceptions *Almost always Caucasian (in America) *Easily frustrated *Poor coping skills *Signs of depression *A lack of trust towards people *They might lose interest in activities they were previously very involved with *They might be narcissistic and have a high sense of self-importance, sometimes to mask feelings of unworthiness or insecurity, and feel entitled to special treatment. *They might have feelings of alienation, isolation, sadness and/or loneliness. *They might have difficult relationships with their parents who accept their unusual behavior and aren't intimate. *The student has access to weapons, often owned by the family. *Bullied by others. 71% of school attackers reported being bullied and persecuted by others, even those that committed suicide or was killed on the scene left evidence behind of past bullying. Modus Operandi As with most spree killers, school shooters, by definition, use firearms during their massacres, though extremely rare exceptions, such as the Cologne school massacre, do exist. Some of them, such as the Columbine shooters, may also use home-made or easily accessible explosives (although half of the Columbine killers' bombs were duds). School shooters always commit suicide once their sprees are finished or they cannot continue due to law enforcement presence and are almost never caught alive. Real-Life Examples *Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold: Committed a large school shooting at their high school, Columbine High, on April 20, 1999. Their original plan, copied by the Oklahoma City bombing and provoked by their anger at bullies, was to kill over 500 students and faculty members by detonating two propane time-bombs inside the cafeteria and then open fire on them with automatic weapons when the survivors were fleeing the school. When their bombs failed to detonate, they went inside and started shooting at them in there, also throwing pipe bombs. After killing 12 students, one teacher and injuring 24, they committed suicide. The shooting is currently the fourth deadliest school shooting in U.S. history and the deadliest massacre at an American high school. This is not the deadliest school massacre in world history, but is the most notorious. *Charles Whitman, aka The Texas Tower Sniper: The perpetrator of the University of Texas massacre on August 1, 1966. On the night before the attack, he killed his mother by stabbing her in the heart. In the morning, he went to the university, where he was once a student, entered the university's tower with a collection of rifles and handguns, killed three people inside and started taking shots at random people outside. He was eventually cornered by the police and shot and killed. During Whitman's autopsy, it was discovered that he'd had a brain tumor which reportedly caused excruciating headaches. He killed a total of 16 people and injured 32. *Pekka-Eric Auvinen: The 18-year-old perpetrator of the Finnish Jokela school shooting on November 7, 2007. He entered the school and started shooting students and faculty members with a .22 semi-automatic handgun. At one point, he attempted to set the school on fire with gasoline, but failed. On another occasion, the school principal tried to convince him to surrender, but was shot seven times and killed in front of the students. Prior to the shooting, he had posted a number of threatening videos on YouTube under the username Sturmgeist89. In one of them, he showed off a gun and wore a t-shirt with the text "Humanity is overrated". The shooting apparently inspired a similar, more deadly school shooting in Finland less than a year later. *Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden: The perpetrators of the Westside Middle School massacre. On March 24, 1998, they, then 13 and 11 years old respectively, dressed in camouflage fatigues, set off a fire alarm and fired at students and teachers with rifles and handguns stolen from Golden's grandfather as they assembled outside. Five people, one of which was a teacher, were killed and an additional 10 were wounded. All but one of the victims were female and one of them had rejected Golden's advances. Unlike most other school shooters, they then attempted to flee the scene in a van filled with sleeping bags, food and gear, but were caught by police. Golden has been released and is now living under an assumed name. Johnson was also released, but was incarcerated again for various petty crimes such as theft, weapon possession and drug possession. Notes *The youngest known school shooter ﻿in history was Dedrick Owens, who was six years old at the time. On February 29, 2000, he fired at a group of fellow students with a .32 semi-automatic pistol, killing one. Because he was one year too young to be found guilty of a felony, he was not convicted for the crime. A man living with Owens, on the other hand, was charged with involuntary manslaughter for leaving the gun within reach for Owens and served two and a half years in prison. On Criminal Minds To date, only one episode, Elephant's Memory, of Criminal Minds has featured a school shooter. The UnSub, Owen Savage, was a school shooter of the "Injustice Collector" type who began a vendetta against people he felt had wronged and bullied him, including his father and his girlfriend's father. He was different from traditional school shooters in the sense that he didn’t attack a school since he had something to live for. The Columbine shooters were also referenced in The Perfect Storm, Hanley Waters and Jump Cut and Charles Whitman was written about by Max Ryan. Sources *Wikipedia’s articles about school shootings: **Wikipedia:School shooting ***Columbine High School massacre (also used explosive devices along with firearms) ***Jokela school shooting ***Kauhajoki school shooting ***Charles Whitman * The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective Category:Criminal Pathology